My last reason was that at the moment when I was called upon to make my decision, I was wearing a Norfolk shooting jacket and knickerbockers. This costume, especially in the streets of London, would render me conspicuous, and in fact would be the worst possible attire for so ticklish a job as that of shadowing a suspect, whereas Quickly’s dress would attract no attention either in town or country. I have asked my readers to take me into their confidence and to face with me the dilemma in which I was placed, because I am in hopes that most of them will admit that under the circumstances, and especially in view of the conspicuous dress I happened to be wearing, I acted rightly. Those who so decide will not be too hard upon me when I confess that, in allowing myself to lose sight of the person who had been in hiding on the hulk, I made, as events proved, a fatal and, but for other circumstances, an irretrievable mistake. That I am but a bungler at the best is, I fear, already only too evident, though I make bold to say that it is not often that I bungle so badly as I did on this occasion. The results of that bungle--results big with consequences to others and to myself--were twofold. The first was that Quickly never returned from the quest upon which I had despatched him, nor from that day to this has any word of him been received. He simply disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him. The second was that he was companioned in his disappearance by the person whom I had instructed him to follow. James Mullen, if James Mullen it were, did not come back to the hulk, and I had after a time to admit to myself that, so far as Canvey Island and the “Cuban Queen” were concerned, “the game was up.” CHAPTER XII HOW CAPTAIN SHANNON’S AUTOGRAPH CAME INTO MY POSSESSION The set-back I had received, so far from causing me to abandon my search for Mullen, only nerved me to fresh endeavour, though how to go to work I could not for some time determine. To threaten Hughes that I would report him to the authorities unless he made terms for himself by telling me all he knew about his mysterious visitor, was not a course which commended itself to me. I might, as a last resource, and in the event of everything else failing, be compelled to so bold a step, but for the present I felt that the wisest thing I could do would be to trace Quickly’s movements after he had started to shadow the person who had come ashore from the hulk. This would, however, necessitate my leaving Canvey, and in the meantime it was of the highest importance that an eye should be kept upon the “Cuban Queen.”